Stockholm Syndrome
by sefie
Summary: For Leon Scott Kennedy, the events in Spain weren't the end of a six year long nightmare. They were just the beginning.
1. Survivalism

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**1. Survivalism**

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Ada Wong's black stilettos made loud and defined clicks as she got off the elevator and walked down the long, empty hallway. When she reached the door to Albert Wesker's office, she stopped momentarily to adjust the straps of her bright red dress. Once reassured of her appearance, she swallowed hard and opened the door. As she stepped into the room, she was assaulted by her own pale reflection; the room's walls were made of reflective glass. 

"Wesker," she said, moving toward his desk with her eyes cast downward, watching her own reflection with each step.

Swiveling around in his chair, he smiled widely. His smile was ghastly. "Punctual, Ada. You know I like that."

"What did you need?"

"I wanted to discuss what happened in Spain. Specifically I'd like to know why you killed Jack Krauser, one of my best men."

Ada shook her head, feeling a rush of unease through her body. She regretted showing up when he requested her presence, but she also knew there had been no other option. This was it; her own personal judgment day. She'd known this day was coming ever since she returned from Spain. Still, knowing wasn't the same as experiencing. Every nerve in her body was on edge and synapses fired the message to run while she still could. She knew she would never make it to the door in time, however, and that was one of the reasons she didn't bother. The other was her inexplicable desire to own up to her betrayal. Deep down, a part of her felt guilty and felt she deserved to suffer.

"Leon Kennedy killed him," she said. "We discussed this as it happened."

"You killed Jack Krauser, not the government agent. Don't lie to me, Ada. I don't like liars. I have no use for liars."

From the corner of her eye, she could tell he was no longer smiling. He took off his sunglasses and set them on his desk before looking up. His reptilian eyes met her dark gray eyes as they lifted from the floor and locked into a stare. She felt her blood freeze in her veins when she saw the anger in his eyes. She could tell this would not end well.

"I have to admit, I was particularly charmed by your boldness. I have never been so brazenly crossed before—it was all kinds of exciting. Foolish in love, are we, my dear?"

She didn't reply. He was trying to bait her into a fight and she refused to walk into the trap without a struggle. The room fell into a deadly silence, awkward and calculated. As the silence grew, the room shrunk and Ada felt trapped. She shifted the weight on her legs and watched as they stood across from each other, playing a game of cat and mouse. Seconds passed and became minutes extending into what felt like hours.

Finally Ada broke, unable to take his reaching eyes on her anymore. She took a single step backwards; her hand falling to her thigh holster holding her custom 9mm handgun. In an instant, faster than her retinas could even register the movement, Albert Wesker shoved her back into the wall and was lifting her several feet off the floor, his left hand wrapped around her neck. With his right, he grabbed her gun and pulled out the clip then tossed both of them to the ground.

"I didn't say you could move, traitorous bitch," he spat into her face.

Seemingly satisfied with the upper hand, he threw her across the room. Her lithe frame smashed into the opposite wall and the mirror shattered violently. Shards of glass bit into her like piranhas sinking their teeth into her smooth, pale skin. She sputtered and wheezed, looking down at a growing pool of blood under her. She raised her hand to her neck and rubbed it, surprised he hadn't crushed her esophagus.

Wesker saw the motion and laughed smugly. "I'll snap it next time you pull a stunt like that."

He stormed back to his desk and hit a button on its surface, pulling up a giant flat screen monitor. Half of the screen was filled with various pictures of Leon Scott Kennedy from different times of his life and the other half a map of the United States. "Anyway, I have an assignment for you," he said, pointing to the screen full of pictures of Leon.

Ada clumsily stood, slipping a little on her slick blood coating the shiny floor as she did so. Blood had flooded her left eye, but she could still see clearly with her right and she squinted. The realization hit her and she felt like she was going to throw up. "You want me to kill him?"

His smile returned and grew wide, showing immaculate rows of utterly perfect teeth. He drummed his fingers on the desk's surface. "He knows too much. He's dangerous."

Wesker pushed a different button on the desk and the screen changed pictures to show a female in her mid-twenties with long reddish brown hair. Ada thought she looked oddly familiar, but couldn't place her until her name appeared on the screen in bold typeface. "Claire Redfield, another Raccoon City survivor," Wesker explained. His fingers moved quickly and soon another display of an older male with short, brown hair and bright blue eyes appeared. "Chris Redfield, her older brother. You know of them, correct?"

"Yes, but I don't get it," Ada said, picking a piece of glass out of her shoulder and wincing in the process. She was a little superficial at times and somewhere in the recess of her mind, she was wondering if the cuts would leave any scars. "What do they have to do with my assignment?"

"He'll be with them," Wesker said. "So will Jill Valentine, Barry Burton and Rebecca Chambers. Leon called them all together. It is imperative you take all means to prevent the testimony. Kill them if you have to."

She frowned, first at the list of names and then at their apparent death sentence. Killing was not her forte, and Wesker knew this. She was a spy; nothing more, nothing less. "What? Since when I am your personal assassin, Wesker?"

He pointedly ignored the question. "Apparently the little government agent knows about the rebirth of Umbrella and wants to alert the government. We can't have any interruptions. We're on the brink of something miraculous and we can't have any interruptions."

He turned the screen off and reached across the desk to put his hand on Ada's shoulder,. His touch prickled her arm and sent a chill up her spine, though she felt he was trying to comfort her. It didn't feel human; it felt much more sinister and cold. Abruptly he stopped and almost snarled at her, saying fiercely, "You're my personal assassin since the moment you decided you wanted to live six years ago. Don't forget the debt you owe to me."

She swallowed and pulled away from him. Her mind and heart were heavy with the choices she had made to bring her here, to this time and place. She was living in Hell. As she walked out the room, she found herself wishing that she had just died; that Annette Birken had fatally wounded her with a bullet to the heart. At least then, while she may have been dead, she wouldn't have been Albert Wesker's possession.

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Note: Welcome to "Stockholm Syndrome," a post RE:4 fanfic written by Monique. Please let me know your opinions through email or review. The plot should be revealed significantly more with subsequent chapters.  



	2. Winter Sleep

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**2. Winter Sleep**

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"Do you really think she was working for Wesker?" Claire said, taking a sip from the beer bottle. It was a cold evening in Washington D.C. and rain was pouring down unrelenting. The air was as cold as Claire's insides felt when Leon told her about Ada Wong's reemergence in his recent mission in a rural area of Spain. 

"No doubt in my mind," Leon replied.

Claire put a gloved hand on his shoulder and put down the bottle with a clunk on the stairs they were sitting on outside Leon's apartment. "She saved your life, you know. She went through a lot of trouble to save you and Ashley both. She didn't have to. She went against Wesker or whoever she was working for to do so. It must mean something."

Leon nodded, slowly, feeling a little better. Claire had her way of reassuring him. Still, Ada Wong and her motives lingered in his mind. Although it had been nearly a week since he returned from Spain, he frequently saw figments of red in the corner of his eyes and her voice in his head when he slept. It was agony, and it made him feel weak. He didn't want to be captivated with the woman in the red dress; he just wanted to move on.

Noticing his saddened demeanor, Claire changed the subject away from Ada Wong and removed her hand from his shoulder. "I'm excited for tomorrow. It'll be like the old days."

She was referring to the anti-Umbrella organization they had both worked for along with Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield, Barry Burton, Rebecca Chambers and other S.T.A.R.S members. Shortly after Umbrella's official collapse on the stock market, they had spent two years together in an unofficial extension of S.T.A.R.S closing down satellite facilities and underground labs much like the one in Antarctica created by the Ashford family. Most of their work was conducted in Europe, in cities like Berlin and Paris where Umbrella had huge factories still producing BOWs and the T-Virus.

Sharing the common bond of survivors and the similar goal to see the destruction of Umbrella Corporation, they had become a tight-knit group. Eventually the work dried up as the giant dinosaur became extinct, however, and the core of the group had all gone their separate ways; Leon worked with the government defense, Claire back to college.

Some stayed in contact, others didn't. Claire and Leon had been of the former, though their contact had been limited in the past few years to phone calls and brief e-mails.

"You shouldn't be," Leon said, frowning. "All of us getting together again means Umbrella is back, and Wesker is alive."

"I just meant it was nice seeing you again." She grinned. "You know, talking like this, like we used to on patrol." She turned to him and studied his face that was illuminated by the street light. He had aged a lot in the six years since Raccoon City; the shadows cast on his face made him look worried and troubled. Claire had no doubt that he was both at the moment.

"Well, in that case, right back at you," Leon said. He smiled a little, pushing Ada Wong out of his mind for the time being and focusing on the woman that was sitting next to him.

A comfortable silence followed. Claire picked up the Heineken bottle and peeled at the label a little with her fingers as they sat and watched the rain bounce off the concrete below. The city was getting soaked to her core. Rain always made Claire uneasy these days; it reminded her of Rockfort Island a little too much and how the Bandersnatches hid around the corners, the rain drowning out their erratic breathing and all signs of their presence.

"It rained in Spain," Leon said suddenly.

"How hard?"

"Drenched," he said. He took the bottle from her hands and took the last sip. "Could barely see in front of myself, and the villagers were chasing me and Ashley. It was the first time since I arrived there that I thought I was going to fail my mission. Ashley was screaming and somewhere in the distance I heard a chainsaw."

"Jesus," Claire murmured. She tried to imagine the hordes of villagers, but couldn't. It was just something you had to see for yourself, she supposed; Leon had described them initially to her as an invasion of the body snatchers, and then modified it to incredibly intelligent zombies, but neither description had helped realize them to her.

"I only survived because we found this bridge to a castle. We could barely see three feet in front of us and they were less than three feet behind us when suddenly, we stumbled onto a bridge. And as we were crossing, Ashley slid on the wet cobblestone and went down. It happened so fast, I barely had time to react. They caught up to her and one of them grabbed her so I kicked him in the knees, grabbed her, pulled back and threw a grenade I'd found earlier into the mob. That was the second time I thought I was going to fail my mission. For a few seconds, before the explosion, all I could think was that the grenade was a dud and we were dead."

"So, I take it you don't like the rain much either then," Claire said.

"No," he said. "I love the rain."

"You're weird then," she said, still thinking of Rockfort Island.

"If by weird, you mean tall, dark and handsome then yeah, I am pretty weird." Claire laughed at his lame joke as he stood up from the stairs and offered her a hand. "Let's go inside, it's getting cold."

"I should be going back to my hotel," she said. It was a statement lacking conviction, the type someone says when they want the opposite to happen.

"Come inside first," he insisted. He didn't want her to go yet. He was rather enjoying the mental absence of Ada Wong that Claire was inducing. It was nice to talk to a woman and get more than two sentences out of her before she disappeared to her next destination. "There's a MacGyver marathon on channel 30 and you have to watch at least one episode."

"I bet you think you're just like him," she said, standing and handing him the empty beer bottle. "Recycle this for me."

He took the bottle from her. "I'll have you know Hunnigan compared me to him once."

Claire raised her eyebrows, amused. "His first name is Angus. You don't want to be compared to a man named Angus."

"Let me guess, Chris used to watch episodes and you just happened to catch a few," he said.

Claire responded by rolling her eyes and pushing for the door, heading inside and leaving Leon to follow. By the time he shut the door, she was already in his kitchen, digging for popcorn and more alcohol.

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Note: Reviews/feedback appreciated as always. I was a little shaky on what to put for the anti-Umbrella organization, as Capcom is always vague about it and often conflicting. There's Umbrella, there's Wesker's Umbrella, there's Ada's other organization she works for—and then there's the "good" groups that Barry Burton worked for, Chris is supposedly working for, and the government Leon works for. Therefore I decided to say they'd worked together for a short time, because hell, it could happen.  



	3. The Left and the Leaving

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**3. The Left and the Leaving**

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At the heart of it, Ada Wong didn't trust Albert Wesker. Not that she should, or he should her. It's just the assignment made little sense at face value. She understood that he wanted her to kill Leon Kennedy, but she didn't understand his motives. She knew he was lying when he had told her he wanted Leon and the Redfields dead because they knew too much. In the six years she had known Wesker, he had never cared who knew what unless they had proof, of which the group had little to none; certainly a statement from the president's vapid daughter would not merit a subpoena. 

So, then, what was it? An obvious take on the situation would be punishment; she had disobeyed him to save Leon's life and now she would have to take Leon's life to come under Wesker's good graces again. She knew, however, Wesker would not be that obvious and that's what troubled her. For once, Ada Wong, the woman with all the answers, had absolutely none—and any she could come up with were most likely wrong.

She ran the tube of red lipstick over her lips and then puckered them up, looking into the mirror. Satisfied, she started rummaging through the jewelry box on the armoire. She found a pair of ruby studs and put one in each ear. She smiled at her reflection in the mirror. Aside from a band-aid on her collarbone, it was almost impossible to tell of the morning's incident. She was pleased.

Ada walked to the door fluidly, stepping out into the hallway. The hallway was bustling with men and women in white suits. Some stopped and stared, others whispered; she was a rare sight these days, more often than not out in other areas of the world carrying out missions and her red dress made her stick out like a sore thumb in the sea of white. Ada enjoyed the attention and carried herself proudly as she walked down the halls like she owned them. This was how she slept at night knowing the evil things she did. It was the prestige that ultimately allowed her to accept the betrayal, the lies and the blood on her hands.

A man in a white lab coat reached out for her as she walked by and called her name. The man was slightly overweight, balding and had a chubby head that shined with grease. Ada scowled, showing obvious disgust for his appearance and social skills. "What is it?"

"It's Steve Burnside," the man said. "He woke up."

Ada kept scowling. After six years, Steve Burnside waking up was a miracle, but was precisely that, a miracle and not hers. She wasn't assigned to lab work and Steve Burnside wasn't in her mission. She hadn't even heard the name for years, though she knew exactly who he was. She'd been there by Wesker's side when he took the T-Veronica virus sample from the teenager's infected blood.

"Wesker asked me to tell you that you're taking him with you."

"To D.C.?" she said, in partial disbelief. It seemed fool-hardy to bring a Tyrant to such a populated area, especially on such a low-end mission. Unless, of course, the mission wasn't going to be as unimportant as she was being led to believe it would be.

"Yes." The man's grubby hands handed her a keycard. "According to Wesker, he's lucid enough for the purpose."

"For what purpose? This isn't in my mission outline," Ada said shoving the keycard back into his hands, her face flaring with anger. She had an obvious disdain for the man and didn't want to be bossed around by him.

"It is now, my dear." Ada turned to see the huge figure of Albert Wesker walking towards them in long, jagged strides. She shivered. Even the way he walked wasn't human; he looked like one of his hunters, hulking at them for dinner. "We injected the Plagas into him an hour ago. It revitalized the damage done from Burnside's self-inflicted injury and regenerated his tissue. I never envisioned it like this. The Plagas and the T-Veronica virus working together so seamlessly."

Ada stared at him, her mouth agape. She wondered how he obtained the Plagas. She'd sold the other sample to a rival company for a little over a half a billion dollars and had assured he would have no way of knowing this. If he'd known, she would have been killed, and so she had done everything possible to leave no evidence of her ultimate betrayal. She'd even crashed the helicopter into the mountains of Spain as they made their escape, pocketing the sample and parachuting out of the helicopter as she directed it straight into the mountains with the pilot gagged and tied up, sealed to a fiery grave. This had given her a reason for the missing sample and had avoided any anger on Wesker's behalf.

Taking her silence in, he smiled nonchalantly. It was in that instant that Ada Wong came to an understanding. He knew that she had betrayed him about the Plagas and that was what this morning had been about; that was what her entire assignment was about. Loyalty and betrayal, the thin line Ada Wong always walked, was now being drawn into the sand and he was daring her to cross it. He wanted to see if she would do his bidding against Leon Kennedy, or if he would have to send a Tyrant to do so. He wanted to know how much he could trust her.

He must have known all along there was no helicopter crash or malfunction, she realized. Rather than let on and allow his anger to rage, he saved the knowledge until he could throw it back at her tenfold. He was cool and calculating, meticulous in his ways. He'd probably known everything before she'd even start. She wouldn't have been surprised if he headed the opposing company himself, making it a puppet for competition and using it to catch leaks and potential double agents. Ada inwardly groaned. All this time she had thought she had been pulling the wool over his eyes when, in reality, he'd been pulling it over hers.

"The Plagas is beginning to regulate his anger," he said, still smiling. "It helps control the T-Veronica virus which is particularly prone to excess rage and mutation. We had to freeze him before because the slightest mood change caused him to go into a white rage, killing anyone and everyone in the area then attempting to do himself in. He was useless. The worst Tyrant yet, thanks to Alexia Ashford's lack of foresight in her own virus and her subject."

Wesker leaned a little closer to Ada and she could feel his hot breath on her skin. "But now, now that's all gone. It's seamless."

"Why am I taking him with me?"

"Insurance," he said. His smile went away, replaced with a soured look. He was thinking about her betrayal in Pueblo again. "When he realizes what he is, he will make sure everyone from his former life is dead whether you have second thoughts or not. And I should hope you won't have second thoughts, because he might kill you then too."

Wesker waved his hand at the scientist and Ada. "I'll see you before you leave." His smile returned as he moved away from them, heading back down the hallway.

The man handed Ada the keycard. "Come Ms. Wong, we don't have all day."

Ada took the keycard and composed herself. She moved to the door, her scarlet dress billowing behind her. The man handed her a folder containing the data on the subject. Ada took it gingerly and the man gestured to the door. "This is as far as I go, that kid's an abomination, a real fucking job."

She took a deep breath then swiped the security card and mashed in her security code. She didn't know what to expect; the apprehension pitted deep in her stomach. There was a beep as the airtight door opened and she stepped inside. The room itself was a blinding white, immaculate and bare except for the center. In the center, sitting on a white operating table, was a scrawny teenage boy wearing gray camouflage with decidedly pale skin. His hair was matted and stuck to the sides of his face and his eyes were a burning bright red with yellow irises. He seemed to process her presence, but did not say anything.

"Steve Burnside?" she said. There was no response except his pupils which moved to fixate on her. "My name is Ada. I'm here to help you."

Finally Steve spoke, his voice harsh and dry. "Claire?"

"No, my name is Ada." She skimmed his charts and saw references to Claire Redfield as his only coherent speech so far. He was reliving the trauma of his death and suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

"Claire," he repeated and Ada sighed, frustrated. Wesker had said he was lucid. He'd lied. The Burnside kid seemed to be no better than any other members of Wesker's genetically mutated family. At least, she thought, he looked remotely human. Though he was pale and his eyes were monstrous, his body was otherwise abnormal for a Tyrant. It wouldn't be too awkward walking around cities with him.

She moved to walk away, but Steve grabbed her. Ada grunted, his hand was noticeably strong. "Claire," he said. His eyes moved up and down her body in a predatory manner.

"Let me go, Steve," she said calmly.

"Claire," he said. He didn't release her, but at least he didn't squeeze any tighter. He could crush Ada like a twig. Despite looking normal, he was definitely one of Wesker's Tyrants.

"Please? I'm not Claire," Ada pleaded. meeting his eyes.

"You're not Claire." He took his hand away then slumped, dismayed. Ada, on the other hand, was anything but dismayed. He was lucid after all, a true medical miracle even if Plagas—something they knew so little about—was involved. A lucid Tyrant had so much potential. He could be the perfect killing machine and that was a distinctly horrifying yet fascinating thought.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Ada asked.

"Claire," he said.

Then he said, "Chasing Claire, and then Claire's crying. And now Claire's leaving, leaving me behind in the dark room, in this dark room, and it's so cold."

"Yes, that's right. She left you for dead and Albert Wesker saved you."

"Wesker?" Steve looked blank and confused. He didn't know who Wesker was, Ada realized. She also thought it could wait for later, when he had more time to process what was happening.

"Steve, this is going to be hard to understand, but I have to tell you," she said, cautiously meeting his eyes. "It's been six years since Claire left you in Antarctica."

"No, that can't be possible," he protested, his eyes lighting up and his expression turning pained as he remembered something integrally important to him. "Oh god, Alexia, she's alive! Tell Claire! Tell Claire she has become a queen!"

He whimpered and jumped off the operating table, starting to pace in the white room with his hands bawled into fists at his side. Ada noticed his stride was similar to Wesker's and oddly inhuman in a way she couldn't place. For several minutes she let him pace while she read his charts, trying to understand the situation, still horrified by the humanity he was displaying.

"Listen," Ada said. He stopped pacing and looked at her with interest. She managed to avoid cringing this time when his eyes met hers. "We're going to see Claire, alright?"

"Really?"

"Yes, but first, let's get you some sunglasses to cover your eyes."

"Claire?"

"Yes," she said, walking out of the room. She handed the file back to the scientist who nodded and left. She suddenly felt very tired and weary. Wesker's mind games were overbearing. She knew now he wanted her to face Steve solely to face her own agenda with Leon Kennedy. It bothered her, though, because she didn't think she was that pathetic about Leon. She didn't look like a broken puppy when she said his name; she didn't even love him. She had moved on from Raccoon City. She was steel, cold to the touch and stoic. The only reason she'd even let Leon live in Spain was because she was using him as cover. There hadn't been significant signs of weakness or an abandonment in her mission; she'd only been going to the highest bidder, nothing more.

Then she began to laugh at the lies she was telling herself. Abruptly in the hallway, still wearing her thousand dollar red dress and black stiletto heels, in a sea of white lab coats, Ada Wong began to laugh like a maniac. She didn't stop for ten whole minutes.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, she went on to carry about her business to find some sunglasses for Steve Burnside. She refused to think any further of Leon, and why the death sentence he was being issued made her stomach sick even though she had just told herself she had no feelings for him.

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Note: Thanks for the positive reviews! I appreciate it a lot, and feel free to leave me a review for this chapter as well. I have taken the advice of one reviewer who suggested making it the T-rating. I don't expect much graphic sexuality in this fic, though I suppose the language alone may merit the rating. 


	4. Right Where It Belongs

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**4. Right Where It Belongs**

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They sat at opposite ends of the couch with a giant German Shepard named Hannah ensconced between them, watching episodes of MacGyver. Hannah was a former service dog at Raccoon City whose trip to a county vet on the eve of the 25th of September had prevented her from going up into flames with the rest of the city. When Leon had found her adoption ad in the paper, he had taken her in immediately, convinced it was fate. Besides being a bit overprotective, she was well-mannered, house-trained and low-maintenance—the perfect female companion for Leon. 

Hannah's only vice was she seemed to hate Claire Redfield.

"Is there anything you can't do with duct tape," Claire said in awe as the episode in which MacGyver had made a bomb out of just Nitroglycerin tablets and duct tape closed. Hannah growled at the sound of Claire's voice and Claire shifted uneasily, holding her hands in her lap.

Leon laughed at Hannah and Claire. "What did you do to her, Claire?"

"Nothing except love her," Claire said, giving Leon a sickly sweet smile. Hannah continued growling.

"I'm sure," Leon said. Hannah stopped growling and her tail started wagging as Leon rubbed her back strongly before he stood up and muted the television's commercials. He turned to the two females and mouthed the word behave in their direction; though whether it was to human or the dog, it was unclear. Then he left the room to refill the popcorn bowl and grab another beer.

Hannah's tail stopped wagging and she started growling again as Leon disappeared into the kitchen. Claire got off the couch and Hannah followed suit, still growling. Claire, annoyed, bared her own teeth and growled back. Hannah yelped and ran off to Leon's bedroom, tail tucked between her legs. The Redfield smiled brightly, satisfied.

"Hey, do you want another beer?" he called from the kitchen.

"It's fine," she said.

"I'm having one."

"You have to work tomorrow, you shouldn't get drunk," she chided, sitting back down on the couch, putting her hand where Hannah had been. It was damp and smelled grossly of wet dog fur.

Leon Kennedy walked back into the room, noticing Hannah had left. He popped off the beer's cap and caught it in an even swoop of his left palm before sitting down. He placed the popcorn bowl where the dog had been, not saying a word about her disappearance. Another episode of MacGyver came on, but the television was still muted.

"Correction, we have a testimony tomorrow," he said. "Besides, I'm not getting drunk."

"You've had three beers."

"And this will be my last." He leaned back into the couch. He could smell the wet dog now, too. It invaded his nostrils and made him gag a little. Suddenly he wasn't so sure if he wanted the beer after all.

"Eau de Dog?" Claire asked.

Leon wrinkled his nose. "Major Eau de Dog."

"You never told me you had a dog before," she said reaching for the remote to unmute the television. "I didn't even know you liked dogs."

"I like to keep the mystique alive," he said, reaching for the remote at the same time as she did, his hand brushing against hers. Their hands stayed there, on each others, for several seconds until the doorbell rang. Claire looked at him and he looked at her; both expressions were unreadable, and a sense of confusion lingered in the air. There was a definite realization from both that something was happening and they should react, but no reaction was made. Finally, at the third doorbell ring, she cleared her throat and removed her hand from his to gesture to the door.

Without a word, Leon got up to answer the door, still feeling Claire's hand on his. It had been hot and small, fitting perfectly against his. It had been enjoyable, to say the least.

Meanwhile, in the background, Claire unmuted the television and the living room exploded in a cacophony of bullets and shattering glass.

Leon swung the door open and saw Jill Valentine huddling under the larger figure of Chris Redfield. Both were dripping wet from the rain and their eyes looked apologetic, almost sheepish. "Our hotel reservation got canceled," Chris explained, sounding irritated. Water droplets fell from his brow. "Do you have a guest room?"

"Yes, but—"

"What's going on in there, Kennedy?" Jill said, interrupting and peering into the room. The gunfire continued on, and was laced with the laughter of Claire. It sounded like someone was getting a kick out of World War III.

Chris Redfield recognized her laughter immediately, having heard it too many times to count before. "My sister is in there."

"Nothing, Valentine," Leon said, "The government would be happy to administer you rooms elsewhere, I'm sure I could make a call or two."

Chris didn't listen; Claire may have been twenty-five, but she was still his little sister and he didn't like the idea of her alone at Leon's apartment. He may have known Leon for years, but he still didn't trust Leon's agenda. He pushed himself into the doorjamb. "Claire?"

"Chris! Jill!" she chimed, getting up off the couch and hitting the mute button again. She walked to the door and opened it, giving them both a short hug and pulling away. "You two are soaking, is it still raining?"

"Yes," Jill said, stepping inside. She gave Chris a look that said more than words could to shut him up, seeing the flare of anger in his eyes.

Claire took Chris and Jill's soaked coats and luggage, placing them by the closet leading to the living room. "Why are you guys here so late?"

"Airplane was delayed, hotel canceled our reservations," Jill said. She was frustrated and flustered. She hated traveling more than anything. "This was the only place we could go, unless we wanted to sleep in the rental car."

"And why are you here, Claire?" Chris demanded. Jill pulled on his arm and gave him another look, but it did no good. Chris Redfield's brotherly instinct was beginning to kick in.

"We were watching MacGyver," Claire said defensively. She gestured to the television casually.

The mention of MacGyver caught his interest. The Redfields had literally grown up on episodes of MacGyver and one of Chris Redfield's ambitions in grade school had been to be the next MacGyver. This was seemingly something him and Leon shared. "What episode?"

"The one where he makes the bomb out of duct tape and nitroglycerine," she said.

"I haven't seen that one in years!" Chris Redfield moved past all of them and sat down on the couch, turning the volume back on and apparently forgetting his brotherly anger for the time being.

This was how Leon ended hosting Claire Redfield, Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine in his tiny apartment in the heart of Washington D.C. the night before their governmental hearing. And as much as he might have pretended to dislike the interruption, he really couldn't deny how good it felt to be with friends once again; to have their backs and them his.

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Note: I know Hannah might seem implausible, but I always saw Leon as a dog person! Thanks to all who reviewed last chapter, it meant a lot—though I don't think I will be bringing back Brad as one reviewer suggested.  



	5. I Still Remember

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**5. I Still Remember**

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Steve ran his fingers along the jet's wing. "Claire," he whispered wistfully, remembering their escape from Rockfort Island. He could almost smell the flowery scent of Claire's hair. She'd used hair conditioner made of roses and it smelled like his mother's garden from when he was little. It had soothed him, even in the last moments of his life. 

He wondered what she smelled like now and inhaled deeply, finding nothing but the lingering traces of Ada Wong's expensive perfume.

Ada was standing several feet away, talking to a scientist. "Find the pilot," Ada said, signing her name on the release papers. The man nodded and scurried off. She turned to Steve. "Get on the plane, we're leaving soon."

Steve walked up the stairs into the belly of the plane and sat on an overturned crate, looking out into the base. The hanger was empty, cold and dark. He felt silly for wearing sunglasses indoors, but Ada Wong had told him it helped him look human. She'd said it casually and coolly, but to Steve it had been anything but. It was the first genuine admission that he was no longer human, that blood was no longer pumping through his veins; that he was merely a monster disguising himself as a human being. He wondered how Claire would react when she saw him. He wondered how he would react when he saw her.

After a few minutes, Ada joined him, leaning against the helicopter's side. She glanced at Steve. He was nothing more than a kid. She felt a hint of disgust for Albert Wesker bringing him back to life. It was unfair and cruel, even for Wesker. It was worse than what he had done to Sherry Birken.

"So, are you here to watch me?" Steve said.

"No," Ada said. "You're here to watch me."

"Oh." Until this point, Steve thought she was the one in charge. Now he wondered who was and what was really going on. Processing the revelation, he looked at her, seeing her in a different light. "Why do you have to be watched?"

She didn't reply and ran a small hand through her neatly layered black hair. Finally, she shrugged indifferently as if the entire matter didn't concern her and she were only along to enjoy the ride.

"Are you a monster too?" Steve asked.

"If I were, you would be able to smell the virus on me," she said curtly. "Do you smell the virus on me?"

He sniffed. "No, I just smell perfume."

"Chanel. It's Chanel."

Steve folded his arms across his chest as he stood. "Well, then if you aren't a monster, what are you?"

"The bitch in the red dress, I believe a man once said," she said, as if that explained anything, pushing herself off the wall and looking at the mouth of the plane. The pilot had arrived and was walking up the stairs to the inside of the plane where Steve and Ada were. When he arrived, Ada brought her hand to his and shook firmly, smiling.

He took his hand out of hers, ending the gesture prematurely. He didn't return the smile. He wasn't the type for formalities. He was the type of man you paid in cash to ask no questions and to get you to the destination in one piece. He was a mercenary; a rogue pilot.

"It'll be a short flight, don't bother warming up to me," he stated bluntly and, walking away, he smiled. He pushed a red button that opened the door to the cockpit, where he would remain for the rest of the flight. A few seconds later the stairs retracted and the plane closed up tight, the hanger disappearing from sight. There was a low rumble as the jet engines began to heat.

"You weren't at Rockfort Island, were you?" Steve asked, as the jet began to taxi out of the hanger.

"Prisons aren't my style," she said. She felt the need to be short with Steve, still disturbed by the humanity of his tyranny. He seemed completely normal despite the T-Veronica virus running through his blood and it made her feel uneasy. Even more uneasy was the fact that he seemed to be seeking a friendship from her, forming a mental bond out of their unfortunate partnership.

"Did you know Claire?"

"A little." She bit her lip and gripped the side of the jet tightly to brace herself as the jet lifted off the ground and into the air. She tried to remember Claire Redfield, but couldn't remember anything except for how she had wanted to be Claire desperately when she'd watched Leon board the underground train with her and Sherry Birken from a distance. She could remember bitterly thinking that she would give anything to swap lives at that point. It seemed like such a long time ago, though; too long ago even to be thinking about at her age, with her history. She was who she was and that was long since decided.

"She's amazing," Steve said. He didn't skip a beat when it came to Claire Redfield.

"Do you ever get tired of being obsessed with her?" Ada said tartly, still clenching the riveted side of the jet as the plane leveled out. She hated flying. "She probably doesn't even remember your name."

The words seemed to sting him into a silence as he was quiet for several minutes. When he spoke again, it came out meek and unsteady. "Is she with anyone? I mean, you know, with anyone."

Ada remained silent, letting him draw his own conclusion as Wesker had instructed her to do right before their flight. It was absolutely necessary to plant the seeds of betrayal and let his mind grow them into deep-rooted hatred. She hated lying to the kid, but she reasoned that this wasn't too much of a lie. At least she wasn't verbally spreading a lie, just an implication with silence. How he took it was his own fault.

"Why won't you tell me?" Steve said.

Then he said, "Is it Leon Kennedy?"

Even at the mention of Leon, she remained taciturn. She kept the silence throughout the rest of the flight, though acutely aware of the monstrous eyes hidden behind sunglasses watching her from across the plane. It was only as they hit the tarmac at a small private airport in a rural area of Virginia that she walked by him and whispered, "No, Steve, she isn't."

It was out of character for her to do this and she knew she would regret it if she lived to, but she couldn't help it. While Ada Wong may have been many things, she was not the type to a kick a man when he was down even if it was her assignment. She wasn't going to be responsible for removing the last thread of humanity from Steve Burnside, for placing the seeds of jealousy in his innocent soul, and Albert Wesker could just learn to deal with that much, after all he had done to her.

For his part, Steve Burnside noticeably relaxed and shot her a grateful look, perhaps somewhat aware she had said something she wasn't supposed to.

After getting off the plane and handing the pilot a duffle bag of unmarked bills, Ada Wong led Steve and herself to an inconspicuous black Mercedes-Benz parked outside the private airport's property next to a chain link fence. The car had no plates and dark tinted windows. Steve whistled as she opened the door and he saw the interior for the first time.

"This car is loaded," he said as he ran his hand on the tan leather passenger seat.

"Don't get too attached, we have to leave it outside of D.C. at a gas station."

"Why?"

"We don't want to be tracked," Ada Wong explained, slightly irritated by his inexperience. She disliked unnecessary questions. She put the key in the ignition and it started flawlessly without a sound. She adjusted the seat and looked into the rearview mirror to check her own reflection before hitting the gas and roaring down the street, the car kicking up dust in its wake.

About fifteen minutes later, as she merged onto a highway heading towards the nation's capital, Ada's radio buzzed loudly. Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, she picked it up and looked in the tiny window to see Albert Wesker's face. He looked worried, or as closed to worried as she had ever seen him anyway.

"Is Steve Burnside with you?"

"I'm driving to D.C., I would hope he's with me," Ada said sharply, changing lanes and cutting off a man in a Honda who waved his fist angrily as he slammed on the brakes.

"Good. Pull over to the side of the highway."

"Not right now," she said.

"It wasn't a question," he growled.

She swerved over to the side of the road, putting on the car's emergency lights. She looked back into the handheld screen. "What was so urgent that I had to delay my mission, Wesker? I take it you didn't just want to see how I was doing, shoot the breeze as it were."

"There's been a mistake," he said, purposely ignoring her smart comment. "It appears the researchers made a mistake. The T-Veronica virus and the Plagas have some nasty side effects when put together in large doses."

"What?" Ada said, not comprehending the point.

"They don't make good neighbors," he stated simply. "They didn't catch it because previous experiments with the T-Virus were ineffectual and normal. However, the T-Veronica virus is Alexia Ashford's mutation. It's a little different. It forces the parasite out of the host's bloodstream as it matures."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that Steve Burnside is extraordinarily dangerous to us all in his current state. He's a time bomb waiting to explode. What is he doing now?"

Ada looked over to the passenger seat. Steve Burnside was awkwardly pressed against the window, slumped down into the leather seat with his legs on the dashboard. He seemed to be snoring. "Sleeping, I think." She breathed an audible sigh of relief.

"Are you sure he's sleeping?" Wesker said.

"Yes. I mean, I think so. Why?"

"Because Tyrants don't sleep, Ada."

* * *

Note: First things first. Thanks for the feedback! I hope all of you are enjoying the story so far. It's about to have a few more plot-twists and more action intense story from here on out; something I hope you will all like.  



	6. A Dark and Stormy Night

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**6. A Dark and Stormy Night**

* * *

The night was still thick and cumbersome, but it would be dawn in less than two hours. Leon got off the couch carefully so as not to wake Claire Redfield who had fallen asleep a few hours ago. He had been watching her sleep, unable to sleep himself. He hadn't been able to get any rest because he couldn't shake the feeling that something bad had happened, or was about to. 

He stood up, looking at Claire as she slept once more. She was attractive. He didn't like admitting his attraction to her to even himself, but it was there. She was attractive and she looked cute when she slept. Timidly, he brought his hand to her face and tucked a reddish brown strand of hair behind her ear. She stirred a little and Leon smiled. Once satisfied she was still sleeping, he walked to the kitchen where he opened the fridge. The low florescent fridge light cast shadows on the kitchen and living room's walls. Finding nothing but beer and a carton of milk, he settled on drinking milk straight from the carton.

"Are you going to drink all of that?" Chris Redfield asked.

Leon turned to see him padding into the kitchen, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. Shrugging, he passed the carton to Chris, who took a swig from it. The two men stood there, looking into the living room for several seconds and saying nothing. Finally, Leon said, "Why aren't you asleep?"

"Jill fell asleep and she snores," he said, grinning a little.

"You feel like something is going to happen to them," Leon said, shaking his head, referring to Claire and Jill.

"That too, I guess. I'm worried something happened to Rebecca and Barry as well."

"The weather's awful. Flight delays all over, you know that. They aren't due in for another few hours anyway."

Chris shifted against the counter, taking another drink of milk. "Look, Leon, I have instinct, right?"

"What kind of instinct?" Leon asked, looking at Chris weirdly.

"Well, there are two kinds for me. There's the brotherly instinct, which tells me you want to jump my sister right now," Chris said, inducing a wince from Leon. He raised his hand dismissively as he continued. "But I'm not talking about that instinct now, even if I want to chew you out for it. I'm talking about the cop in me. Something isn't right. I can feel it everywhere."

"Me too." Leon was relieved the older, more experienced man had similar misgivings about the situation. It made him more confident in his unease.

"Now the question is are we wrong?"

"It was a dark and stormy night," Leon said, turning his head to the window still being pounded by torrential downpour.

Then he said, turning back to Chris, "No, I don't think so."

"So then, the next question is where do you keep the firepower?"

"My bedroom," Leon said.

Chris laughed a little."Only you would keep them there."

"Hey, it's the only place no one but me goes," Leon admitted sheepishly, laughing a little.

"A regular Casanova is after my sister alright. At least you don't live with your mom still."

Slapping Chris on the back, hard, Leon walked to his bedroom down the hall. Stepping into the room, he instantly felt the hair on his arms go on end. In the dark, illuminated by the moonlight streaming in from the window to the right, he could see Hannah sprawled out on his bed, asleep. There was a large shape next to her, but it was too dark to see what it was.

"Girl? Hannah?"

There was no movement.

Stepping closer, Leon could now see the pools of blood that oozed down to the floor, coming from underneath the German Shepard. He gagged and put his hand to where Chris' chest should have been to prevent him from making any sudden moves, but hit air. He had disappeared. Realizing he didn't have time to worry, Leon took two large and slow steps to the nightstand and put his hand on the drawer, fumbling to open it. Turning to the doorway, he saw Chris had returned with a knife from the kitchen and was now brandishing it. The blade glimmered in the moonlight.

"Good thinking," he whispered to Chris, who nodded. He wrapped his hands around the 9mm he kept fully loaded in his nightstand and pulled it out. Steadying it, he motioned for Chris to flick on the lights.

As the lights went on, the large shape stirred and launched itself off of the German Shepard's bloody corpse. The horror of recognition hit Leon as it sailed through the air. It was a Spider Plagas. It was a Spider Plagas and it was heading right towards them.

"Chris, move," he shouted, as he fired several shots at the moving parasite. The shots sent the parasite backwards where it landed with a sickening thud on the dresser. It settled there momentarily, getting back on its legs and making a loud hissing sound.

Chris looked at Leon. "What is that thing?"

Leon didn't bother answering. He checked his clip. Only five bullets left, he'd better make them count.

"Leon?"

Leon ignored him again. Beads of sweat began to build at his brow and fall down his face as he concentrated. He aimed his gun at the organism, which moved from the left and to the right preparing for attack. Suddenly it chattered loudly and spit a giant stream of green fluid at Chris Redfield, whose instincts for survival saved him just in time. At the sound, Chris had rolled out of the way to the left, just dodging the acidic fluid. There was a growing hole in the wall exposing the white tiled bathroom.

Chris was wide-eyed and he looked to Leon for any confirmation of what he'd seen. Leon just steadied his gun, stepping closer to the dresser. The parasite sprung back and jumped at its attacker. Two inches from its destination of Leon Kennedy's face, it was shot back, point-black, with a series of five impeccably aimed 9mm rounds. It landed on the window, a mess of green liquid and exoskeleton. Soon it began to dissolve, the acid eating its remainders.

Leon turned and offered his hand to Chris, pulling him off the floor. "It's from Spain. It's Albert Wesker's new toy."

"Wesker," Chris proclaimed sourly. He looked to the bed where Hannah lay, dismembered and in a pool of blood.

Leon looked at the dog in disbelief. "If I'd been asleep, it would have killed me too." The nightmare never ended. In her own way, Claire Redfield had just saved his life. Leon walked to the bed and pulled a sheet over Hannah, getting the awful feeling that this was just the beginning and Spain had been a prelude of the horror to come, not a separate story.

Snapping out of the nightmarish reverie, he walked to his closet and pulled it open. There lay enough weaponry to take out a sizeable army. In silence, Chris grabbed a Desert Eagle and loaded it while Leon eased himself into a Kevlar vest and pocketed a few flash grenades. He'd bought the munitions a few days ago when he returned from Spain, unable to shake the fact that Wesker was still out there. Apparently it had been a good move.

"I didn't expect you to have my personal favorite," Chris said, putting the kitchen knife down in exchange for a survival knife.

Before Chris could continue, there was a shrill scream and a loud grunt from somewhere else in the apartment. They looked at each other.

"CLAAAAAAIIIIIIIIRE."

There was the sound of breaking glass.

"CLAAAAAAIIIIIIIIRE."

Followed by more breaking glass.

"CLAAAAAAIIIIIIIIRE."

This time, the proclamation was followed by a loud grunt and another roar, this one mostly unintelligible, trailed by a feminine scream and the sound of even more breaking glass. The entire apartment shook violently from the impact.

"Claire," Leon and Chris said in unison, rushing out into the hallway. The guest bedroom's door was open and they moved in quickly, worry lining their faces.

There was a large outline of a man's shape in the room, running through the window and the wall, and rain was streaming in over the broken glass and plaster. Holding their weapons at the ready, the men ran to the gaping hole in the building and looked down. Three stories below, they could see a giant, hulking creature with a woman in his arms. He was running through the streets with a trail of parasites following him.

"Claire," they whispered again, this time an edge of hopelessness in their voices. Leon brought his pistol out to shoot, but Chris put his hand on his arm. It was too dangerous to try from that range and hope to not actually hit Claire. They looked out as the monster disappeared into the alleyway, away from their sight.

Feeling a pair of eyes on him, Chris was first to turn around with his magnum. To his surprise, the small frame of his sister was standing in the doorway. He elbowed Leon to turn around, whose jaw dropped as he did.

"What happened?" She yawned. "Is everything okay? Where's Jill?"

"Jill," Chris said, realizing what had happened.

Then he said, "The bastard took Jill instead."

* * *

Note: Thanks again for the reviews and feel free to leave more. I hope everyone likes this chapter, I am trying to update in a timely fashion. Also, it's intentional that it's unexplained how Steve got there. I realized if I kept it in real time, it might be a little dragging and I would have to add more fluff, something I am not hugely a fan of! 


	7. Butterflies and Hurricanes

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**7. Butterflies and Hurricanes**

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The last thing she remembered was hearing the sound of glass shattering. It had been a distinct, loud crack as the windshield prepared to break into thousands of shards. She remembered bracing and preparing for the worst, but the darkness had taken her before the window broke. In the darkness, she'd heard nothing. In the darkness, Ada Wong had finally been at peace. 

Slowly she came to, groaning as she opened her eyes. Her head howled and her bones shrieked in pain. Ada's hands immediately went to the seatbelt around her waist and fumbled with it. With a great effort on her behalf, there was finally a loud click. Now that she was able to move, she turned to work on the door, but had no luck there. The tree she'd veered into had crushed the driver's side of the vehicle and both the door and the handle were completely smashed; it was a miracle she had not been as well.

She looked for another means of escape, and saw the passenger door had been torn off. It looked like the work of Steve Burnside. He'd lived through the accident apparently. Whether or not this was a good thing remained to be decided. Her radio was lying outside of the car, flung from the car on impact. Still in immense pain, she cautiously eased herself out to the passenger's seat. Draping her legs over the side, she sat there for several minutes, inspecting her wounds.

They were mostly superficial; cuts and bruises of no consequence. A large slash on her leg was bleeding profusely, but upon further examination, it proved that it wasn't deep enough to be a worry. She was going to be alright.

Satisfied with her self-prognosis, she got up and picked up the radio off the wet ground. The screen was cracked and speckled with raindrops, but the radio worked otherwise. Clicking a few buttons, she sent a transmission to Wesker. She wasn't surprised when he didn't pick up. She'd figured he had probably already left for D.C. to neutralize the situation. She tapped through the device and found Steve Burnside's location via satellite. He hadn't pulled out the tracking chip yet, and that was good news. However, he was near Leon Kennedy's apartment and had traveled far; much farther than she had expected. This was bad news. There was a pang of worry as she thought about Leon. There was little doubt in her mind he was after Claire Redfield in his current state and she knew Leon would try to protect Claire. She hoped he wouldn't do anything foolish.

Sighing, she realized the entirety of the monumental task set before her. She had to find and subdue him before he exposed the entire city to the Plagas and the T-Veronica virus.

She walked over to the trunk of the car. It was already popped from the accident and rain was pouring in. The folder debriefing her mission was soaked and the ink had run, rendering it useless. It already was useless, however, and the loss not too great. She remembered right before the crash, Wesker told her to abort the mission. It had been a relief. The new mission she was assigned to was one of containment. The publicity of a parasitical outbreak and a Tyrant on the streets of the nation's capital was not something Umbrella needed the public to see. According to Wesker, the publicity would be fatal.

Ada spotted what she had been looking for in the back of the trunk. It was a stainless steel briefcase and she grabbed it, popping it open to check its contents. There was an antidote to Plagas in it and a fully loaded Desert Eagle magnum by its side with several rounds. She resealed the case and picked it up then started to head back to the road. As she walked away, she hit a button on the handheld device and sent the remainders of the car exploding into a fiery wreck.

Her leg was stiff and sore. She felt miserable walking in a storm at three in the morning wearing heels and a thin dress. No one stopped for her as they drove by and traffic was light. It was over ten miles to the city and she could feel the time ticking. By now, Steve had probably been spotted by some of the city's populace. There'd probably already been a few police calls reporting a giant green monster to the station. She laughed dryly, thinking about the police's response to such a report.

Another car drove by, kicking up muddy water as it passed. It splashed all over Ada and she yelled as the driver continued on, unnoticing. Sighing, she kept on walking on the shoulder of the highway. There were times she really hated her job and this was one of them. She shivered violently and miserably, her thoughts drifting back to Leon's safety as they were prone to do when she had nothing immediate to do. Try as she might to not care, a part of her did.

She had just decided she was going to have to hoof it all the way to the gas station that was miles away when a beat-up Ford Taurus pulled up behind her and honked loudly then revved its engine. The headlights illuminated her drenched frame, the dress clinging to all the right parts and becoming transparent when wet. There was another honk and a man's jeer.

"I heard you the first time," she muttered under her breath.

She did a one-eighty and walked over to the passenger's window, tapping it lightly. It was promptly rolled down. Before leaning into it, Ada looked up and down the road to check for oncoming traffic, but there was none and so she set the briefcase down on the ground. She unlatched it as she leaned in, surveying the scene. The driver was a fat, middle-aged man with thinning hair. More importantly, he was alone. "Hey beautiful," he said. His eyes went up and down her body, ogling her chest in particular. Ada felt like a piece of meat, but played along, coyly leaning a little too far and offering him a better view of her chest as her hand wrapped around the magnum held just out of his sight. "What you doing out here so late looking like this? I don't see no dinner party out here," he said.

"I got a flat tire." She puckered her lower lip and pulled away from the window, her arm with the gun moving to hide behind her back.

The man was still staring at her body predatorily. His grip on the steering wheel relaxed and he offered a creepy grin which she thought made him look a little like a rodent. "Life's a bitch."

"So fuck it?" She smiled suggestively, giving him a little wink.

"I like the way you think," he said.

"You do?" This was so easy it was like taking candy from a baby. She clicked the safety off her gun and the rain drowned it out. "Do you also think you can help me?"

"I'll help you if you help me, little lady." His smile turned lecherous and the implication of his words was not lost on Ada Wong.

She smiled widely in response then opened the door. Sitting down, she felt his hands on her immediately. She could smell whiskey on his breath as he panted. As he leaned in to put his lips on hers, she put the magnum to the back of his head and used her free arm to push him back.

He opened his eyes and looked at her, uncomprehending. "I'm afraid I changed my mind," she said. "I don't really want to help you anymore."

"Who are you? What do you want?"

"I'm your worst nightmare. Now get out of the car." He backed away. "Keep your hands up where I can see them. Slowly open the door. Slowly move out of the car." She looked at his face as he stared out of her, paused, his mouth openr. He wasn't smiling anymore and instead of a rat, he looked like a pig; a little fat piggy. Correction, a little fat dead piggy. She squeezed the trigger and shot him pointblank as he stood up, out of the car, and then crawled over to the driver's seat where she shut the door.

"I'm sorry, but I couldn't have you telling anyone you felt me up," she said without a trace of sincerity. "I have my reputation to think of."

As much as Ada didn't like killing anyone, let alone a civilian, she had ultimately been desensitized to it; she had no qualms and would lose little sleep over this murder. It was just another death in the eyes of a woman who had seen many. She put on the seatbelt and took off, heading into the city, her mind back on Steve Burnside and her new mission.

* * *

Note: Sorry if it's a little harsh that Ada killed a man. It's just something I could see Ada doing. If she leaves his body there, someone finds it and reports it as a murder. The gun is unmarked and the car will be disposed of. They'll never find her. If she leaves him alive, there's potential for him bringing trouble to her; a police search for her within the coming hours. Similarly, she has to hurry and get to D.C.--she couldn't take the time to dispose of it properly, really. Anyway, that's my rationale. I don't think it makes Ada a bad person, either. I just think it shows her darker side.  



	8. You or Your Memory

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**8. You or Your Memory  
**

* * *

"Chris," Claire Redfield yelled loudly down the stairwell. "You can't get her back this way." She ran down the steps, taking two, sometimes three at a time, looking like she was dressed for war. An automatic shotgun was in her small hands, a M4 carbine strapped to her back, and a pink bandana wove through her long red hair keeping it out of her face. Her blue eyes pierced with worry as she met her brother's.

Chris shook his head. His face was long and disappointment embedded itself in every pore. He had failed Jill Valentine. He had failed the woman he loved. He had frozen when he saw the monster with her, paused, dropped the ball—and now Jill was going to die if he didn't find her. "I will get her back." He turned his back to her. "I can't have either of you helping."

"Steve has her," Claire said. "I can reason with him. He meant to grab me." She winced as she said the words, realizing she'd spoken Steve Burnside's name for the first time in years. He really was back, but somehow, though she'd dreamed of this day a thousand times, it felt more like a nightmare.

"Don't personalize the monster. He's a Tyrant, that's what he is."

"He's a scared boy trapped in a mons—"

"Enough, Claire, just stop it," Chris said harshly. Claire bit her lip, looking at her brother, stung by his words and his inability to see her side. Steve Burnside could be saved, if he would just see her point. He was still a human somewhere inside, he had to be. He'd said her name. "I love you too much for this," he added.

There was a pause and then she felt Leon's presence behind her. "Leon," Chris said. "Don't let her come after me. She's safer here, with you."

"Are you sure this is what you want to do, Chris?"

"Yes, just make sure she doesn't follow me."

Leon nodded his affirmation and Claire turned to him in disbelief then turned back to her brother. He started to walk down the path into the dark night and she took a step before Leon Kennedy's strong arms wrapped around her entire body, holding her back and removing the shotgun from her hands. "I'll scream," she spat, struggling as he subdued her.

"I don't care," he said. As if on cue, she started clawing at him, trying to push him away, trying to get to her brother as he disappeared into the rainy city streets on a certain death mission. She sunk her teeth into his arm, but he was wearing Kevlar and it barely made a dent. Then she started shouting, sending her heel right into his shin.

Leon grunted, but held fast. "Let me go," she breathed, thrashing violently. "I can't bury him, I can't bury him like my dad and mom, I can't bury him, I can't, I can't, I can't bury him, too much, I can't bury him Leon!" Suddenly, with this proclamation, she stopped struggling and her shouts turned into loud violent sobs that overtook her entire body. Leon still held her close, listening to her heartbeat. It was rapid, jagged, alive; fiery, like her personality. Inhaling he realized she smelled of roses. It was a nice, soothing smell. He squeezed tighter as she sobbed and took a hand to her hair, removing her bandana and letting the red strands fall into her face.

"It's okay, we aren't going to have to bury anyone today," he soothed, rubbing his hand on her head. She was still crying but her breathing was regulating and she was calming down. Her heartbeat had also decreased and become steady in his arms. "We aren't doing what he says anyway."

She pulled herself out of his arms and turned to him. She looked up. Tears were staining her cheeks and the florescent stairwell lights reflected them brilliantly. "We aren't?"

"No. We're letting him think he's alone, but we're going to tail him," Leon said, smiling. "If there's one thing I learned in the last few years, it's that being alone never works out well." His smile disappeared as he thought of Ada Wong's arrival and how she'd saved his life countless time in Pueblo, when he had thought he'd been alone and just lucky. It seemed both his bad luck and good luck was mostly linked to Ada Wong. He wondered if she were here, too, in the city. He bet she was, knowing that woman's penchant for trouble and complex missions.

She could tell he was thinking of Ada Wong. She looked at him curiously as he fell into a silence. "What was it like?"

He looked at her, confused, unsure of what she was asking.

"When you saw Ada alive again, in Spain, what was it like? I just want to know, because I think I'm going to see Steve alive again tonight and I think I'm going to have to kill him and I just want to know what it was like when you saw Ada alive again, in Spain."

"It was a punch straight to the gut."

She pressed further. "Who spoke first? And what did you say?"

"She said, 'Long time no see, Leon.' She pulled a gun to my head and that's what she said."

"Do you love her?"

He was quiet for a long time. Miraculously, Claire was understanding and didn't press the subject. She just let him stand there with his hand on his forehead, eyes closed, searching for an answer somewhere inside. Finally Leon found one. "No, Claire, I love the red dress. I love the memory. If it's even possible to be in love with a memory, as intangible as they are."

Claire grinned sadly. "It's possible."

"In my memory, Ada is untouched by Umbrella, by Wesker. She's strong. She's beautiful. She's fierce. She's my equal and she never tells a lie. But…"

"But what?"

"That's just a memory. It isn't real. There's a woman in front of me now that's all of those and more and she's real. I can touch her," he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. "I can touch her hair. I can run my hands through it. And that trumps a memory, no matter how lovely that memory is."

"Leon," she whispered thoughtfully.

"I have to make a phone call to someone at the White House who can help our situation," he said, moving up the stairs and away from her. "Come back into the house for a few. I put a tracker on your brother's jacket. We can track him while I talk to Hunnigan and think of a game plan."

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Note: I didn't get much attention for the last chapter, I'm hoping people weren't too frustrated with the Ada-centric scene! Please feel free to critique me if you don't agree with the path the story takes. Anyway, this is mostly fluff, but character development is apparently good and I should do it, right:) Also, just a thought, Leon may just love her memory, but isn't that often the same thing? Could he love Ada and Claire at the same time, but not know?  



	9. The Butterfly Queen

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**9. The Butterfly Queen  
**

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He had plenty of things to do and plenty of things to say before he died. But he knew his time was coming soon. He could feel it in the way his chest rose and sagged with each painful breath, and in the way each step spurred pain up through his entire body. Still, he walked onward, the Grim Reaper trailing him behind through the city streets. He had a lot to do and not enough time. That was the problem with life, there was never enough time. He knew this and it pained him. He hadn't felt pain for decades, but this had pained him and left bitterness. 

He knew he hadn't wasted his life, though. He was relatively happy with where his life had taken him and the choices he had made. He didn't regret a thing. Regret was not becoming of him. It was weakness and he was not weak. He was strong. He likened himself to Atlas holding up the world several times in his recent diaries, only instead of the world, he was holding up Umbrella Corporation.

Sometimes, late at night, when the air breathed through his office window and the moonlight hit the mirrored walls and illuminated the entire room in ghastly bright light, he thought of those he had killed and those he had betrayed in lieu of sleep. Most of them were nameless, and he felt nothing of their deaths. In the attack on Rockfort Island, an attempt to gain access to Alexia Ashford's mutant sample of the virus, he had killed thousands. His only distinct distaste of his actions there was his failure to kill Chris Redfield. He didn't hate Chris Redfield, in truth; he admired Chris distantly for his crusades and his beliefs. It was just a pity they were nothing like his. It was a pity he was on the wrong side. It was a pity his last dying effort would be to kill the man and realize Ada Wong's full potential.

For the first time in years, he felt genuinely tired. Looking out the car's window, he saw the nation's capital in the distance and this sight made him even more tired as he realized what he had before him. It was the final lap of a long race; a too long race. He hadn't slept for over six years, since his injection of the virus into his system which was his own way of sugar coating his mutation into a half-tyrant, half-man. With the virus in his blood, he didn't need sleep. He was more efficient this way, and until a few months ago, he hadn't ever noticed the absence of sleep. But now, looking in the mirror, his own reflection staring back at him and the city lights twinkling in the distance, he was aching and bone-tired.

This was how he knew he was dying. He was feeling human again and he was dying.

In a twisted way, he was dying from what had initially saved him. When he had nearly died in the mansion, the T-Virus he put into his system had stopped his death. It had brought him back from the brink of death. For years, he had given himself shots of the virus to maintain his life, sacrificing a little more of his humanity with each syringe. As the years went by, the dosage increased, and now the truth was becoming evident as his body ate itself alive: he had not been a candidate to become a tyrant, and as such, his mutation would be catastrophic when it peaked. He was not one of the few humans that took to their becoming peacefully. He was not one of the few humans who had anything to become, really; he was not a Nemesis, and he would never be anything close. While he had delayed it for years, he was finally decaying into a form of zombie. A superhuman no more.

And it was peaking, the decay was, and he was feeling human again now in the weakness and weariness. No dose of the virus could save him, he knew, as the clock ticked fast and time slid from his open hands like grains of sand on a beach. It almost made him frantic. It had been why he had concocted this exploration into Washington, D.C. It had been why he had done everything he had done in the past few months. Desperation to assert his plans into motion before he was no longer.

The car stopped abruptly, and the door opened to a neon-lit gas station. Ada Wong slipped in next to him, putting a metal briefcase on the floor. She was soaked with rain. Wesker glowered at her, suppressing the joy he had that she had shown up after all; he was right about her, he knew. Yes, he was right about her and she would work for his purposes. She was safe, in her own way. "Has the government agent figured out the subject's location, is he in pursuit?"

"No," she said. "Leon's with Claire Redfield." She shifted in the leather seat and shut the door. "You know, if you'd told me you were coming, I wouldn't have hijacked a car. I wouldn't have had to kill a man thirty minutes ago."

Wesker laughed flatly, duly noting her referral to the agent informally, almost fondly. "I wanted to see if you were soft, dear heart. It was just a test. Don't take it so hard. My only regret is I couldn't witness it myself."

Ada only looked disgusted at him and somehow out of her element, with her hair dripping wet and plastered to her pale face. "I'm not soft," she said firmly. "I never was soft."

"Good to know," he deadpanned, thinking about how half of him had expected her to be contacting Leon Kennedy already and how the other half knew she wouldn't make the same mistake twice. Then he took the briefcase from the floor as the car started again and opened it. He looked through the contents briefly and then went back to looking out the window. He could smell Steve Burnside now, in the wind. The scent was acrid and violent. Wesker could sense the youth's confusion and anger. He could also smell others infected; others whose infections were just beginning. It was going as planned and it would all be over before the sun finished rising.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ada's lips were pursed, as if she wanted to ask a question. Several minutes later, she finally did. "Are we killing Steve Burnside?"

"In due time," he replied. He could smell the boy even stronger now, and he rolled the window down a crack, inhaling deeply. He could smell the infection in Burnside's blood and the others. They were growing in numbers.

"Aren't we on a mission of containment? Don't we want to contain the subject's rampage before dawn?"

"The government agent has already contacted his friends at the White House. I think he's learning how few of them there are now, however. I think he's learning that money makes the world go round, and no one cares about vigilantes at the end of the day." Wesker smiled his creepy smile and tapped his fingers against the glass. The car sped on through the rain slicked roads, through the heart of Washington D.C. and toward the water. "This was never about containment, the government has known for weeks about this upcoming 'attack.'"

Her eyes grew wide with disbelief. "You told me it—"

"I tell you a lot of things, Ada. Did it ever occur to you that I might be prone to lie as much as you do? That I knew what the Plagas would do with the T-Veronica virus? That this mission I sent you on was under false pretenses? That something more was going on?"

She stared coldly. Of course she had figured it, led by her initial distrust of Wesker, but she hadn't fathomed it. She hadn't realized it. And now he was telling her as if he were talking about the weather that she was being manipulated by him, and had been completely unaware. She didn't know why, and she suddenly felt hopelessly lost. He was once again several steps ahead of her, and she was running to catch up.

Still, imagining that the government was supporting Umbrella was disheartening at least. She wondered if he'd bought out the Graham administration, or if they'd been bought out before Raccoon City was nuked; if that had been a ruse to instill false comfort in S.T.A.R.s members and survivors. She wondered how much it cost to buy the heart of democracy from the United State's chest, still beating and bloody.

Wesker continued, speaking softly: "You underestimate me time and time again. You underestimate me and you underestimate Umbrella. You don't understand your own place on the chessboard. You don't know if you're a pawn or the queen, and you play blind-folded."

"So why not kill me?"

"You have your uses," he replied then reached out to stroke her face. She turned away. "Do you know what chess piece is the best piece?"

Ada shook her head. She thought it was the queen, but she didn't want to say the wrong answer. She was feeling expendable, a beautiful butterfly caught in a spider's web; she felt that if she missed his point, if she answered incorrectly, he might devour her whole with his garish, gruesome teeth. Wesker's smile went away in her silent negation. "There isn't one. It's about how it's played." He didn't offer an explanation. "Still, you must ask yourself, what piece are you, Ada? Jack Krauser was a pawn, are you a pawn too? Or are you something more? A queen, perhaps?"

She didn't know what he was searching for and he didn't tell her. Instead Wesker told the driver it would be another ten blocks west, to the abandoned warehouse by the river and Ada listened tensely. He didn't say another word for the rest of the ride. In his silence, he was thinking about loyalties and the lines they walked daily. He crossed Umbrella for his own profit, and now he rose the company from the ashes created by fires he set in the first place.

At the heart of it, that was the answer to Ada Wong's question. Wesker didn't tell her this, but it was the answer to why he didn't kill her. This was why he gave her this mission. It was also why he allowed her the one in Spain, knowing of her selfish reasons and foolish intentions. It was because of his past, how he had betrayed people and set Umbrella ablaze. He had walked the line too closely and edged over into the gray area at times. He had made mistakes. He had stabbed nearly everyone in the back with a serrated blade.

And he was going to teach her how to overcome those mistakes and he was going to sharpen her own blade for her. He was going to give the company to her. He had decided this as he had thrown her into the mirror in his office, full of rage for her betrayal yet oddly enraptured with it and the way the red fabric of her dress had soaked up most of the blood from her cuts. Yes, it was then that he had decided that he was going to teach her to be his predecessor. Shortly after, in briefing her of the fake mission, he also decided he was going to kill Chris Redfield. These were the two things Albert Wesker was going to do before he died. They were too much, almost—oh god, his bones ached, his heart ached, he felt sick lifting his head—but they were necessary. They needed to be completed before he could cave to the virus and its endless demands.

He would show Ada Wong exactly what piece she was. He was going to show her that they were carved from the same wood.

He was going to show her exactly how to walk that line.

Meanwhile, a few miles away, as the rain came down heavily on the rooftops of the city and the sun prepared to make its slow ascent into the sky, Leon Kennedy hung up angrily on Ingrid Hunnigan as she told him that she was sorry, but there was no evidence of any attack or creature, and he had no authorization to request government back-up in such a situation.

The US government had been bought out. But when he told Claire Redfield this, she had only stared blankly into his eyes before telling him they had to find her brother immediately, that there was no more time. "His tracker's signal," she said, gushing with concern, "it went out while you were on the phone, Leon. Chris is in trouble."

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Note: Writer's block unblocked, and finally an update. Hopefully no one missed me!! Sorry for the delay, but I made about ten different chapters and hated them all until this one came to me. I hope you like this chapter, and if you're a bit confused, that's okay, because the forthcoming chapters will reveal more. Reviews appreciated, as always. : 


	10. The Way Out is Through

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10. **The Way Out is Through**

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The rain was coming down in sheets now, and Chris could barely see in front of him. He had taken off his jacket and put it over his head for protection, but it was little cover from the strong downpour. In other circumstances, he would wonder if Washington DC usually had such bad weather or if he were simply unlucky, but these were not other circumstances. As he ran splashing through puddles that spread over the city's sidewalks like giant oceans mapping a concrete globe, all he could think of was Jill Valentine. Every second passed was a second she could be dead, or worse, exposed to the virus and parasite.

He stepped under the cover of an adjacent alleyway and put his hands on his knees, panting hard. He had been running for the past hour, following the destruction left in the creature's wake, and his body was finally shutting down. His muscles throbbed in protest. Still, he couldn't give up. Not now. Not when it was his fault that Steve Burnside had been able to take Jill. The tyrant took her while Chris and Leon were dealing with a loose Plagas and were distracted. If he'd thought quicker, Jill would be at his side right this very minute.

He sighed wistfully and straightened up, running his fingers through his soaking hair.

What bothered Chris the most of the situation wasn't even that Jill was missing. What bothered him was that the tyrant had somehow mistaken her for Chris' sister, Claire Redfield. This showed an error, a mistake made in the heat of the moment and a lapse of judgment due to emotion. This was something tyrants were not usually programmed for, and was indicative of humanity—it was indelibly human to error, not something normal for a B.O.W. And yet the creature he'd seen was nothing remotely human. It had been an abomination of green sinew and scales.

Regardless, he knew that whatever Steve Burnside was, whether he was a tyrant or otherwise, it was directly linked to Albert Wesker. He also knew that when he got to see Wesker face to face that he would teach him a lesson once and for all.

"Jill," he muttered, the rain drowning him out, "I'm coming for you." With that he clenched his fists tightly at his side, and took off running down the sidewalk again, following the trail of broken shop windows and the occasional toppled lamppost.

Chris Redfield was so absorbed in the chase that he forgot to pick up his jacket before he ran again. He didn't turn back and therefore didn't even notice the tracking device affixed to his coat's collar whose red, blinking light stood out in the dark night like a beacon.

Not twenty minutes later, Claire and Leon arrived to the same place Chris had been. Claire leaped out of the passenger's seat of Leon's Toyota, and ran to the alley, her frame silhouetted by the bright headlights. Leon left the engine running and got out, moving with long strides down the alley towards Claire. She was surveying the area with intensity, holding the handheld device that contained the coordinates of the last transmission from the tracking device before it had disappeared off the radar. Her face turned into a frown as she saw Chris' jacket. She knew it was his because she'd bought it for him last Christmas. She bent down and picked up the coat, which was thoroughly soaked by now, and noticed the now short-circuited tracker.

She felt Leon behind her, and felt him put his hand on her shoulder. He cleared his throat. "There's no blood on the jacket. Look, there's not even a tear. He's fine," Leon said soothingly.

Claire nodded, biting her lower lip as she thought of what to do next. He thought this was a mannerism that was cute, and would have told her so, if not for the sudden sound of footsteps. He felt himself tense up as he looked back to the car and saw several shadowy figures in the street. He touched Claire lightly, nudging her to look.

Her blue eyes met the growing crowd. She didn't waver, but she did drop the jacket slowly to the ground and stood strong. She turned to look at Leon closely and mouthed a single word.

_Zombies?_

He nodded his head, his eyes locking with hers. Both of their expressions were readable, and it quickly became a conversation without words. This comforted Leon, knowing Claire's intentions. Whenever he'd looked at Ada Wong's eyes—in Raccoon City or in Spain—he'd never known what was going on in her head. It bothered him more than the zombies and the crazy cult members because he'd never known what Ada's next move would be, even if she'd known his. In contrast, Claire was an open book. If she was angry, she looked angry; if she was scared, she looked scared. Right now, her eyes were distant and calculating with a trace of fear. He knew she was thinking of an escape plan, and then another escape plan in case something happened.

"Run to the car together, the keys are in the engine," he whispered, barely audible above the rain. The zombies shuffled aimlessly down the street, stopping at the sides of the Toyota, touching its warm hood. The mob was growing in side and Leon knew from experience that they had to make a move now or they would have to abandon the car.

He did not want to abandon the car, if only for the fact that he'd paid half his pay check for it the year prior.

They looked at each other, silently screaming simultaneously to run, and then took off in tandem in a fast sprint. They met the car quickly and Claire shoved her whole body into a zombie, pushing it away from the passenger's door, while Leon sent his foot directly into another's head. Another zombie grabbed for Claire, and she pulled a combat knife out from her thigh holster, and jammed it right into the zombie's skull before shoving it away onto the other zombie who was trying to get up from the cold pavement.

"Claire, get in the car," Leon grunted loudly, struggling as another zombie blindsided him and grabbed for his neck from behind. He wasn't sure if she'd heard him, but he didn't have time to think about it as he tangoed with the undead creature. In the end, it nearly took a chunk out of his shoulder, but he deftly dodged it and backhanded it off, his hands prying open the driver's door. He lunged in and slammed the door behind him before seeing that Claire had made it inside as well. She was hanging over the chair, her legs in the air as she dug in the backseat for munitions.

He hit the lock on the door. "The glove box," he said. Then he hit the pedal on the car and it revved to life, backing into several zombies.

She slid down into her seat and began to dig through the glove box, finding a standard USP. As she checked the clip, Leon found himself hit with déjà vu. Six years ago, she'd done the same thing, only minutes after he'd met her for the first time.

"The rest of the guns are in the trunk," he said apologetically.

She turned to him and smiled. "This will do." Her smile began to fade as she realized the implications of the attack. She wondered if the outbreak were isolated, or if they had another Raccoon City on their hands this time—in the capital of the United States of America.

There was the sound of glass breaking as a zombie smashed through the rear window. The car swerved briefly as Leon was startled, but Claire kept her composure and fired three succinct shots into the back. The zombie fell off the trunk and into the street, joining its brethren in the distance as they drove away.

"What do we do now?" Claire said. She bit her lip again, and Leon gripped the steering wheel tightly.

"We find your brother, we find Jill, and we get out of here," he replied, still gripping the wheel tightly. He occasionally looked back in the mirror to make sure there wasn't a tanker behind them, out of control. There wasn't, but the feelings of déjà vu grew increasingly strong still and the pit in his stomach formed tight knots.

She frowned. "We have to tell the president. We have to call the newspapers. We have to--"

"They sold out, Claire, it's not my responsibility," he said. He looked at her then back at the road. "If they cared, they shouldn't have fucking let Umbrella return!"

"But there's innocent people," she pressed. She looked into the rearview mirror as well, feeling a wave of déjà vu. The pistol was cold in her hands and she shivered from both the temperature and Leon's words.

"We're innocent people as well," he said. Then he added, "We need to find your brother. I don't want to know what else is out there if there's already zombies."

"Wait," she said, "Do you think there's Plagas already as well?"

He thought about saying something other than the truth, but decided not to. She wouldn't be easily fooled anyway. "Yes."

"So there's Steve Burnside, there's zombies, and there's probably parasites all over the streets of DC?"

"Yes."

"And the government won't help us."

"Yes."

Claire just stared at Leon, who could read the fear in her eyes. At the stoplight a few streets down, he pulled her into his arms and squeezed her tight. He could have lied to himself and said that it was for her, but really, it was mostly for himself. He had never felt so alone in his life, and he was fearful that the beginning of the end was in place and mankind's fate would be determined in the following few hours.

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**Author's Note**: I started my classes up again, as well as my own forums so I've been busy. I have gotten all the positive reviews in the past month, however, and I must say thanks! Hopefully this pleases you, and you like this part of the story. Don't worry, I have no plans in stopping writing either, I just haven't had much time like I said. 


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